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Despite recent increases in sales and cash flow that have pr

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shobuj40
 Post subject: Despite recent increases in sales and cash flow that have pr
 Post Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2008 2:57 pm 
Despite recent increases in sales and cash flow that have propelled automobile companies’ stocks to new highs, several industry analysts expect automakers, in order to conserve cash, to set dividend more conservatively then they were.

A. to set dividends more conservatively than they were.
B. to set dividends more conservatively than they have been.
C. to be more conservative than they have been in setting dividends.
D. that they will be more conservative than they were in setting dividends.
E. that they will be more conservative than they have been to set dividen



OA: C why not b
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JonathanSchneider
 Post subject:
 Post Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2009 7:28 pm 
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ManhattanGMAT Staff


Posts: 380
The "have been" is wrong in B. What could the "been" refer back to? The earlier verb is "set." But we do not say: "Have been set." We could say "have been setting," but the "setting" part has not been laid out for us, so there is nothing for "have been" to connect back to.
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kramacha1979
 Post subject: Re: Despite recent increases in sales and cash flow that have pr
 Post Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 9:34 pm 
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Students


Posts: 69
In B why can't we say than they have been <set>
analysts expect automakers to set dividends more conservatively than they have been set..
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RonPurewal
 Post subject: Re: Despite recent increases in sales and cash flow that have pr
 Post Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 6:06 am 
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ManhattanGMAT Staff


Posts: 7146
kramacha1979 wrote:
In B why can't we say than they have been <set>

no.

you cannot omit a word unless it ALREADY has a complement, used IN EXACTLY THE SAME WAY, earlier in the sentence.

your <set>, which you're trying to omit, is a past participle (like "taken" or "eaten").

there is no existing use of "set" as such a participle, so you can't omit this one.

--

example of a sentence in which you can make this sort of omission:
the temperature can't be set until the pressure has been <set>.

in this case, the existing "set" is a past participle, as is the omitted "set", so we're all good.
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